NTC Celebrates the Theatre of Harlem

On Friday, December 4, 2015, as a part of their annual meeting of the membership in New York City, the members of the National Theatre Conference gathered at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Herbert Cave Auditorium at Harlem Hospital Center, for an afternoon of celebration, enlightenment and discussion of the history and culture of theater in Harlem, it's present state and it's future prospects.

The events were hosted by NTC Members Benny Sato Ambush and Woodie King, Jr. who arranged for a luncheon at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture which featured a viewing of the American Negro Theatre Mural and an opportunity to explore the Center's exhibit celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the American Negro Theater.

After lunch, the event moved across the street to the beautiful and spacious auditorium at the Harlem Hospital Center where guest speakers included Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Dr. Barbara Lewis, and William B. Branch along with a distinguished panel including some of the most vibrant producers and artists making theater in Harlem today: Voza Rivers,Sade Lythcott, Ty Jones,Debra Ann Byrd, George Faison, Deadria Harrington, Sandra A. Daley and Bryan E. Glover, and a short film reflecting on the life and work of the legendary Harlem theater-makerGertrude Jeanette.

We are very pleased to share this remarkable day through the photos, documents and video below.

Aspects of Negro Life; From Slavery Through Reconstruction. One of four mural panels by Aaron Douglas on exhibit at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Oil on canvas, 1934. (The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division.)

The American Negro Theatre (ANT) was founded on June 5, 1940 in the basement of the 135th Street Branch of The New York Public Library. Founded by playwright Abram Hill and actor Frederick O’Neal, ANT would go on to push the boundaries of black theater, and to produce ambitious, original works by black playwrights. Ultimately, the ANT became one of the most influential black theaters of the 1940s, and launched the careers of numerous prominent black actors including Harry Belafonte, Alice Childress, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Earle Hyman.

Learn more about the Schomburg Center's celebration of the American Negro Theatre's 75th Anniversary HERE.

Learn more about the remarkable artists and speakers participating in this even here.

Alice Childress

Seeking the Untrammeled Self: HarlemTheater in its HeydayA Prologue to Harlem’s Legacy of Black Theatre by Barbara Lewis, Ph. D.

​In 1949, Florence, set in a southern train station, debuted at Harlem’s St. Marks Church on 125th Street. The following year, Florence was produced again at the Club Baron on Lenox Avenue, a gathering spot famous since the Harlem Renaissance. The 1950 program also included Just a Little Simple, which dramatized the Langston Hughes stories. The double bill drew a huge audience. When asked about moving the hit downtown, Alice Childress, who wrote Florence and adapted Hughes, declined.

She was writing for the community, not commercial attention, she said. A pioneer member of the American Negro Theater, Childress spent every spare moment mastering stagecraft in front of and behind the scenes. Five years before writing Florence, Childress was nominated for a Tony for her role in Anna Lucasta, which ANT adapted and produced on Broadway in 1944, featuring a black family.

Childress is one of thousands, who make up the story of Harlem theatre, from the Lincoln to the Lafayette and beyond, all pushing to be sympathetically seen. The emblematic Childress devoted her career to positively portraying an extended community, viewed by outsiders as always lesser and unworthy. In her eyes, blacks, whether called Negroes or African Americans or something else, were often insightful and not invariably criminal. Home and belonging was what they sought. For a time, in the 20th century, from one fraught era to another, they had both, untrammeled, in Harlem.

​Benny Sato Ambush, Opening Remarks

Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Barbara Lewis, PhD. - Harlem Theater, Antecedents and Accomplishments

Barbara Lewis, PhD., a cultural historian with a background in theater, is the director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. ​Thanks to Dr. Lewis we are able to share her slide show (below) and a pdf of her notes (right.)

An Interview with William Branch moderated by Woodie King, Jr. (4 parts)

William Branch interview - Part One

William Branch, Playwright, Editor, American Book Award Winner, Screenwriter, Producer, Critic.Mr. Branch has degrees from Northwestern University and Columbia University; he also studied at Yale University and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama and Performing Arts. Mr. Branch taught at Cornell University and William Paterson College; he is the author of filmstrips, screenplay outlines, TV and radio scripts and has directed in Television and Radio. Noted plays: A Medal for Willie; In Splendid Error. Noted film: Together for Days. Editor and contributor: Black Thunder: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Drama. Editor and contributor: Crosswinds: An Anthology of Black Dramatists in the Diaspora and many more.

​Woodie King, Jr. is a director, producer and the Founder and Producing Director of New Federal Theatre. King's work earned him numerous nominations and awards over the years, including a 1988 NAACP Image Award for his direction of Checkmates, and 1993 Audelco Awards for Best Director and Best Play for his production of Robert Johnson: Trick The Devil; he also received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement. King was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Wayne State University, and a doctorate of fine arts from the College of Wooster.

William Branch interview - Part Two

William Branch interview - Part Three

William Branch interview - Part Four

A panel discussion with representatives from theHarlem Theatre Community (8 Parts)